64 Indigenous Mexican Language Dialects at Serious Risk of Extinction Eirinet Gomez - La Jornada
go to original November 6, 2013

Ixcatec: A Dying Mexican Language (Wii0Lover)

Of the 364 language dialects spoken in the country, 64 are classified as “at high risk” of extinction, having fewer than 100 speakers, according to Javier López Sánchez, professor at the National Indigenous Languages Institute (Inali).

He emphasized that some Nahuatl dialects in Veracruz are at risk of extinction despite a nationwide population of 1.5 million speakers.

At the magisterial conference Indigenous Languages, A Cross-Cutting Policy at the Colegio de Veracruz, the official brought up another case, that of the Ayapa Zoque language in Tabasco, which has two known speakers living today, both of them eighty years old.

... Of particular note is the fact that discrimination, social exclusion and the fear of retaliation against ethnic minorities stood out among the causes of indigenous language extinction.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Kevin Chao

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